The Devil, Probably

Synopsis

In order to be technically free of the mortal sin of suicide, a young man who has given up on the world pays a drug-addict to shoot him. Charles (Antoine Monnier), who is a student, has tried political action and investigated the claims of religion but ultimately finds nothing which will change the overwhelming bleakness he feels surrounded by. In this austere movie by director Robert Bresson, the power of the storytelling comes from the lucidity of the imagery captured on film, rather than in the acting.

Nihilism as logical endpoint but spiritual failing, a product of society's turn to capitalism-as-religion that damns its denizens. Richard Hell calls it the most punk movie ever, but a soundtrack of mechanized noise practically skips the reactionary aesthetic of punk for its most avant-garde successors.

I don't think Bresson is ever asking us to question whether we agree with Charles' logic, but he just wants us to watch him questioning it. We may grow weary of the world and the mass mechanisms set in place to keep us here, but until we're able to comprehend the sublime poetry of a bus stopping, opening its door, and then starting again, we're all doomed to oblivion. Despite an apparent commitment to nihilistic oppression and blowing the whistle on corporate cynicism, I think The Devil, Probably is an affirmative and joyful film which does subtly intuit "the incomprehensible" through its sound, images, rhythms. I think the irony at the centre of a lot of (mainly late) Bresson is that the characters in the films would probably be "saved" if they were able to see and experience the films they were starring in. But that's not possible.

" The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come,…

I made a note while watching this: "seal clubbing." I need not have made that note. It's not likely a moment I could forget. It's much darker and vicious even than the ending of this film (telegraphed by the opening; I spoil nothing here). Everyone calls this a nihilistic film, and I admit, I am tempted to do the same. It's just so absurdly extreme about it that I wondered while watching if it were intended as a critique (I doubted it--the only thing I really knew about it was that Fassbinder loved it). Mostly, I found it all rather irritating and ultimately unfeeling in a way that I just couldn't appreciate.

Severe depression feels like a numbing, suffocating mind cloud of somatic and psychological death, and this seems counter to Charles' sharp philosophizing and self-proclaimed intellectual superiority. Bresson's constraint and obsession with generating atmosphere and mood feels digressive in that it doesn't help to adequately explicate Charles' experience or actions.

Ok Bresson, I’m back and I’m prepared, let’s see what you’ve got this time around.

[93 Minutes later]

…Meh? I really want to love this film, mostly because it’s got such a good title, but even as I return to it three years after initially shrugging at it and now being a little more understanding of Bresson’s typical approach - even if I don’t exactly love it - it ends up with a mere half star increase and a similar feeling of vague appreciation mixed with a modicum of frustration.

Bresson’s ideas here are interesting, and I don’t exactly have a problem with how they’re presented this time. I’m ok with the philosophising and the characters-as-vessels-for-political-statements, and here Bresson’s penchant…